Snake Scales and Lion Claws
by Singer of The Phoenix Song
Summary: As Harry and the gang enter Hogwarts, also joining them are pureblood Eugene & halfblood Katy, who is still new to the wizarding world. This is the story of how they grow & mature together despite their backgrounds & expected the rivalry of their houses.


**AN: Anything and everything in this belongs to the wonderful J K Rowling except for characters and events that do not happen in the books. Otherwise, I totally cribbed this off her :)**

**This story I'm trying to dovetail around the series, with two OCs of mine. This was originally inspired by a music video I found on youtube called Wizard Love (check it out, it's amazing!) and then the idea for this story came to me, so I started writing. Hope you enjoy it and I'd really appreciate the feedback!**

_**First Impressions**_

The Great Hall was magnificent; beautiful gothic architecture tapering up into the starlit sky high above the castle, accentuated with the gold place settings that reflected the light thrown by the floating candles over head. This, _this_ was what it meant to be a student of Hogwarts, to be a part of this proud lineage of learning, to excel in the arts of magic, and to make history with one's actions – all skills learnt within the hallowed stone walls of this institute.

Rather, those were the words Eugene's father had given him before he had been put on the train at Platform Nine-and-three-quarters.

Right now, Eugene was staring into the sea of faces under their pointed hats and hoping he didn't look like a shaking leaf in the wind. His family – the Mullholland's – had almost exclusively all been Slytherin's, with the exception of his aunt from his father's side, and two of his mother's cousins – apart from that everyone had waved the green serpentine banner.

Of course, Eugene had set off for Hogwarts hoping fervently that it would be his house too, but as the sorting hat had finished it's song, his resolve to be 'cunning' had waned to a wafer thin line because of the implied ruthlessness to 'achieve his ends'. Not all Slytherins were bad, were they? Many of them had shunned those who went on to become Deatheaters. His father – while never _ever_ acting upon it – used to proclaim that the Dark Lord had had the right idea towards muggles, although he never said much these days after he had got himself into a spat with the Ministry, now he never spoke of the subject at all. However silent he kept, the under current of his views was always discernable in the way he spoke.

So, with his surname beginning with 'M', Eugene had to wait an agonisingly long time for his doom; they had only just started with a girl called Abbot. Slowly, the crowd on the dais began to thin, and then the M's began, starting with a skinny girl named "Male, Katherine!" right at the tail end of the queue, who looked absolutely petrified as she stumbled towards the stool, eyeing the candles as though she thought they might fly down to attack her.

Ahh, she must be a muggle born. That would explain the look of abject terror as she fell onto the wooden seat, still watching the candles uncertainly, as the stern faced teacher dropped the hat over her eyes.

"Some _people_," a voice sneered into the silence, and Eugene turned to look at that Malfoy character with a small frown. He was smiling in a sickly sweet way at the girl, who was visibly trembling on that horrible podium of judgement. "Who let _that_ dreg in?"

The thin, snide looking boy with dark hair beside him grinned, and opened his mouth to speak, but whatever mean thing that was on the tip of his tongue was blotted out by the roar of "GRYFFINDOR!"

The Professor removed the sorting hat from the girl's head and she fairly ran for the applauding table, where – as Eugene watched closely – she proceeded to bury herself under a pair of older students' elbows and disappear from sight.

For some odd reason, that made Eugene feel rather disappointed. He was not entirely sure why either, since the house she had just been inducted into was supposed to be the opposition…was it not? That did not stop him from trying to pick her out from among the black robes, tailored in red and gold. As he had observed on the dais, she was extremely skinny, and from here her blonde hair stood out amid the line of six or seven dark haired students she had tried to hide behind. It brought a smile to Eugene's lips – which instantly evaporated as "Malfoy, Draco!" was called out.

The pale haired, rude boy sauntered his way up to the stool in an overly cool and collected manner, and was instantly proclaimed a Slytherin. Eugene tried not to sag under the growing weight of despair; he just _could not_ live with such a spoiled, pampered little _so-and-so _ for the next seven years. What was he going to do?

"Mullholland, Eugene!"

Gulping, he strode forth towards the stool and destiny, knowing full well the confidence in his stride did not match the strained and scared expression on his face. Before leaving, Eugene's uncle had taken him aside and explained about the Sorting Hat, so he had thought himself well prepared for this ordeal. However, when the faded material dropped over his eyes he wasn't prepared for the shock of hearing such a clear and intelligent voice _right_ in his ear – he all but jumped out of his skin!

"Ahh!" it said aloud, startling him. "What have we here? Hmm…you're a tricky one, my boy. Lacking in confidence, but that will change over time…loyal, yes yes…very bright, too. Determined to prove your worth, and great ambitions for the future…"

True, Eugene wanted to work with the Ministry in the transport department, and was prepared to work very hard to get the top job – but after the hat's speech about Slytherin, it dawned on him that maybe ambition was not such a good thing…

"Oh yes, it can be," the hat murmured, more to itself than to Eugene, but still succeeding in making him jump. "And I do believe you'll do well in… SLYTHERIN!"

The last word was shouted to the hall at large, and Eugene fell gratefully onto one of the benches of the green and silver table, happy to be out of the limelight. Although, when he looked around he saw the Malfoy boy, seated between two thug-like boys who were sneering at him, the bubble of relief burst and left Eugene feeling very off balance with his new house.

Just as Eugene began to lose focus and fiddle with his cutlery, a name was called out that made his head snap up in attention – just as the rest of the hall.

"Potter, Harry!"

A skinny dark haired boy with round glasses made the awkward walk to the stool, staring straight ahead and probably trying to ignore all the whispers that followed him.

"Is it actually…?"

"It is!"

"Never!"

"Wow…"

"Bet he's with us," said a boy confidently, with the looks of a second year. The three people sat with him rolled their eyes, and laughed at him when the Sorting Hat shouted "GRYFFINDOR!"

The table fairly exploded with noise, which Potter did not register as he stumbled towards them and disappeared as the blonde girl had. A couple of older students with flaming red hair were yelling "We got Potter! We got Potter!" at the tops of their lungs, and Eugene saw for the first time a _huge_ man at the high table with a bushy black beard grin and give the boy the thumbs up. Odd, how did he know the gamekeeper? Wasn't Harry Potter supposed to have grown up with muggles, and so would have had no contact with the wizarding world?

Now there were only four students left; "Turpin, Lisa," was sent to Ravenclaw, "Weasley, Ronald," ended up on the Gryffindor table, a distinctly foreign looking girl named "Vincent, Zaheda," also went into Ravenclaw, and finally "Zabini, Blaise!" became a Slytherin.

And then their headmaster stood, and Eugene could not help the feeling of awe that took over him as he gazed up at the kindly face of Albus Dumbledore. His opening speech was fairly short, ending with the strange words of, "Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!"

As he sat down the students clapped and voiced their approval, and Eugene let out a nervous laugh.

"Don't worry," said the girl next to him as the plates suddenly filled with food. "He's a bit strange like that, but he's a damn good headmaster."

"It just seems like an odd thing to say…" he mused, looking at the wonderful food piled high before him and feeling the long hours of hunger from the train finally catch up with his stomach. "How do they _do_ this?"

"Kitchen's below," the girl pointed through the floor. "Get's sent up here. Quite clever, isn't it?" she smiled warmly and started helping herself to the roast chicken.

"Yes," Eugene said to himself, looking up across the hall and catching the blonde girl on the Gryffindor table from the corner of his eye, now laughing at something the boy beside her had said and dropping the spoon of potatoes she held down her new robes. "Very clever indeed."

XOXOX

Katy felt that she was having the time of her life, now that she was over the first hurdle of life as a witch. The floating candles were still a concern to her, but as the other non-magical kids slowly got to grips with everything, she felt less afraid since they seemed very not bothered about them anymore. All this wonderful food! And the light show on the ceiling – that the brunette girl with thick, frizzy hair told her was magicked to mirror the night sky – it was so amazing! Much as she hated to admit it, but Katy felt that giving up going to the new secondary school with her Muggle friends was almost worth it.

The first thing that knocked her newly found confidence was the conversations with the ghosts, which almost put her off her food. _Almost_, though not quite enough because she was just so hungry from the train ride.

As the meal progressed, the plates changed their content to sweet treats – and the conversation in general turned to their families. The fifth year girl sitting directly across from Katy grinned and told her all about her completely muggle family, and sympathised with the culture shock the younger girl was going through. "It's scary now, but you'll get used to it eventually. Just try to memorise the quickest pathways round school and you'll do fine. And keep on top of your homework!"

The boy next to her, a third year with a ridiculously cute hair cut that involved sweeping his short hair to one side like a fringe, speared a strawberry on his fork and spoke through a mouthful of cream tart. "I'll give you the low down of the teachers," and he went from left to right, describing each of the teachers subjects, personalities, weaknesses, and levels of strictness in terms of homework, behaviour and conduct around the school. It was all very informative, and Katy wished she had the energy to pay attention, but she was falling asleep where she sat – slowly but surely.

The fifth year girl noticed this and shut the boy up, before she got them both dragged into a conversation with a thin red haired boy and the bushy haired girl.

"I _do_ hope they start straight away," she was saying, barely even touching her chocolate cake which the boy beside Katy was eyeing up. "There's so much to learn, I'm particularly interested in Transfiguration, you know turning something into something else, of course, it's supposed to be difficult-"

The older boy soothed her rant gently by saying, "You'll be starting small, just matches into needles and that sort of thing,"

"Yeah," the girl opposite laughed. "First year Transfiguration's dead boring, isn't it Percy?"

"It looks fascinating!" the younger girl insisted. "I've already read our course books, and they said that-"

Katy's stomach dropped out of her chest and she had to drop her spoon of ice cream into her bowl. "Were we supposed to read them over the summer?" Oh God, she was going to fail and it she hadn't even started!

"Of _course_ not!" the third year roared with laughter. "I'd've been kicked out by now if that's the case, never do any homework round here if I can get away with it. Flitwick's brilliant for that…"

"Andrew!" Percy scolded. Then, to the older girl, "Abigail, you should know better!"

"Hey, the only people who actually read the books in advanced are high flyers and nutters. Looks like we've got ourselves here a high flyer," she winked at the younger girl, who's faced flushed pink with delight.

"There's a _very_ fine line between _high flyer_ and _nutter_," Andrew demonstrated with the apple pie on his plate, cutting as thinner slice as he could. "On most days, the distinction blurs," he winced with a thud as Abigail apparently kicked him under the table.

"Ignore him," she said, leaning forward. "Sorry honey, I got your last name during the sorting, but what's your first?"

"Hermione Granger," she said without hesitation, and shook Abigail's hand.

"Abbie Stoker," the girl said, nodding at Andrew. "That's Andrew Whights, Percy Weasley, and – oh, sorry sweetheart, I forgot your name!" she turned to Katy.

"Katherine," she said. "But call me Katy,"

"Will do!" Andrew shook her hand formally before leaning across Percy to Hermione and saying, "Hey, you gonna eat that? Bloody Fred Weasley nicked it all over here,"

It wasn't long before Katy and Hermione got talking, and they were delighted to find that they were both from muggle families, and they swapped notes on backgrounds and parental professions. Hermione's were both dentists, and they lived in a town not far from Katy's. In turn, Kay told her about her own family; about the mother she lived with and her long term partner along with his two children he'd recently won custody over. Her father was in actual fact a wizard, which she had only found out about this summer since she had been the result of a one-night stand; he had been shocked to find that he had a daughter, and going to Hogwarts no less! Apparently the 'Ministry of Magic' had tracked him down and sent him to their home to explain everything; it was very decent of him, and he had handled the whole situation quite maturely, going as far as paying for her equipment, the fees, and taking her on a short holiday to get to know each other.

Still, they had a rather awkward relationship with each other, which they had patched up over the summer, but still Katy left out in the conversation as she described her house and laughed when Andrew started rabbiting on about his pet dog back in Reading.

"Love that dozy old lab to bits." He sighed and stared at the ceiling for a moment. "Sucks to be away from home for so long. But Hogwarts is kinda great,"

"Verily," Abbie sucked the syrup from her spoon and placed it in her bowl. "The food is to die for round here,"

"And Hogsmead! I get to go this year!" Andrew fist pumped the air.

"Bully for you," an apparent second year yelled at him from down the table.

Andrew pulled a face at the offending boy and sniggered. "Heheh, sucks to be him…"

At that point, the headmaster rose to give a more in depth speech, and Katy became quietly, if somewhat sleepily, attentive. Most of it went over her head, but she heard the bits about the out of bound areas, which sounded reasonable enough to her except that the one about the third floor seemed to rattle a lot of people. Andrew frowned deeply at the silver haired man as though the force of his stare would bring him answers. Though they said nothing, although Percy was talking in hushed tones to another first year boy, the tension was there between the older students. Katy couldn't fathom what was so wrong about a whole corridor being out of bounds – even if the risk was painful death. Maybe it was some wacky wizard gas leak that had the amplified effect of chlorine gas – her mother's partner was doing a degree course in Post 1800 English Literature, and he'd recited the entire works of Wilfred Owen to her in preparation for a lecture he had to give to his fellow uni students, and the vivid accounts of what a simple gas could do to the body under Muggle circumstances was enough to convince Katy that wizards could do far worse to each other than chlorine gas.

"And now, before we go to bed, let us sing the school song!" Professor Dumbledore said enthusiastically, reaching for his wand and raising it high in the air to make the most fantastic golden ribbon appear like an elongated firework and twist itself into the shapes of letters.

"Yey," Abbie said disdainfully, standing up with the rest of the students.

Katy rushed to join her, and felt someone nudge her arm. Andrew leant down so that he was right next to her face and nodded at the high table, where smiles looked more than a little bit strained. "Just look at the enthusiasm!"

Katy and Hermione giggled, and Andrew spread his arms like a conductor and paused as he waited for the anthem to start.

"Everyone pick their favourite tune," they were instructed, and all Katy could think of was _Ride of The Valkyries_. "And off we go!"

The first line, "_Hogwarts, Hogwarts, Hoggy Warty Hogwarts!_" was bellowed out by the students, all in different tunes and at different paces; it was the epitome of organised chaos.

Andrew was belting his out to the tune of _Rule Britannia_, while Abbie sang to the tune of _Jerusalem_; it was with Abbie that Katy sang, since she knew it so well, but she had to watch the ribbon closely to get the lyrics right. It was completely ludicrous; she absolutely _loved _it.

The last to finish, conducted on by Dumbledore himself, were the two red haired boys that looked like Percy and the boy sat next to the dark haired celebrity boy whose name had slipped Katy's mind.

And then they were dismissed to bed, and Katy barely noticed anything around her except the distinctive twists and turns in their route to their beds, hoping to God she'd be able to find her way back down for breakfast the next day. There was a run in with a nasty ghost called Peeves, who Percy warned them all about before they reached a portrait of an enormous woman in a dress that Katy detested; she had _always_ hated the colour pink, in all its many hues.

"Password?" she demanded.

Percy said, "_Caput Draconis_," and the whole frame swung on invisible hinges to reveal and hole in the wall.

Katy scrambled through on Hermione's tail and fell into a large room with a massive fireplace, surrounded by wonderfully comfortable looking chairs and sofas, and decked out all in warm, rich reds and bright shining gold.

"Oh wow!" she sighed appreciatively.

"Girl's up those stairs there," Percy pointed. "Boys, over there. Go straight up to the top and good night. Assemble here in the morning and I'll show you the way back to the great hall. Good night,"

The six girls all crept up the stairs, bypassing the other doors, right to the top as instructed, and the dark haired girl at the front who Katy was sure had a twin who had ended up in another house pushed the door open first. Their dorm was clearly the very top of a tower, if the slanted ceiling and rounded shape had anything to do with it; six four-poster beds were placed at regular intervals around the central stove for added heating, and all their possessions were already sat at the foots of their beds waiting for them.

Katy sat down on her own bed beside Hermione's and touched the crimson hangings. "This must be worth a _fortune_!"

"Isn't it exciting?" Hermione gushed, reaching for a stack of books at the top of her trunk.

All Katy did before bed was change into her favourite pyjamas, clean her teeth, and throw a clean set of robes out for tomorrow. Then she fell onto the crisp, cool sheets of her new bed and curled into a ball – the way she usually slept. The others chatted for a bit before settling down to do the same.

The last thought to run through her mind before falling asleep was the words the Sorting Hat had said to her when Katy had sat on the stool.

"_Quite bright, quite bright. And fiercely loyal too… But there's a great heart of courage there, so I have no other choice but…GRYFFINDOR!"_

XOXOX

Eugene did not mind sharing a room with Malfoy now as much as he had at dinner; for one thing, the boy was on the other side of the rectangular room, out of the way in some corner that was not visible from where he was sitting. The other reason was that Malfoy was ignoring him, and that suited Eugene just fine.

Maybe it was because Eugene had not flocked to him instantly as did many of the other new Slytherin students, or maybe it was because he had exclaimed loudly how three of his relatives had not been in Slytherin when another of the boys asked him about his family.

Or it might have been because Eugene gave Malfoy a filthy look when he had tried to trip up a new Hufflepuff girl as they left the Great Hall; she must have lost the prefect detailed to take them to their common room so the logical solution was to go back into the hall and find an older student to show her the way – a moment of confusion and weakness that Malfoy had exploited.

It was cool down here in the subterranean dormitories, but not uncomfortably so; Eugene was perfectly warm under the top covers of his bed. Sleep came surprisingly quickly, considering all that was spinning around inside his head, and with it came very odd dreams. When he woke up the next morning, most of those dreams had evaporated with the rising of the sun, but there was one that had kept recurring, and that he now remembered rather vividly as he and the rest of his dorm mates walked towards the Great Hall for breakfast.

A prancing lion holding a shield singing a silly little children's song – a sort of nursery rhyme all wizard children knew – with a snake coiling itself around the lion's body in a gentle embrace. Green and red sparks flew from the lion's mouth while the snake's scales oscillated between bright gold and shimmering silver. The snake had wound its way down the lion's front leg and twined itself upon the shield, which turned into a crystal ball, and then the lion started murmuring something in a low voice while blue light played from within the crystal.

There had been something else, but as this dream played out again someone had woken Eugene up and he had lost it before it could be committed to memory like the rest.

In the Great Hall, their head of house – a tall, intimidating man with black hair, pallid skin and a hooked nose was dealing out timetables to the first years. It could only be Professor Snape, a man who had been at school with Eugene's father. He had heard mixed things about the Potions teacher, and was for a moment intensely glad he was in Slytherin, as Professor Snape was said to highly favour his own house. This was a man Eugene would hate to be on the receiving end of his ill temper.

Breakfast was as widely varied and delicious as the feast last night, but instead Eugene settled for some marmalade on toast, and jumped when his eagle owl Bruce landed before him, having not expected any mail on the very first day. Inside the package was a small jar of his mother's homemade marmalade, and a short letter asking him how he was and anxiously demanding a reply.

After smiling sweetly at the fourth year girl sitting next to him with her bag all ready for the day, Eugene wrote a quick letter back home, reminding his mother that he could not report on life at Hogwarts if he had only experienced less than twenty-four hours of it, and promising to give her a full update when he had something substantial to write about.

Bruce gave him an affectionate nip before flying off with his letter, and Eugene grabbed more toast on which to spread his mother's marmalade. There was another commotion as a grey owl brought a large box to Malfoy, which revealed a huge stack of sweets and cakes from his parents when opened.

"Such a pity that not _all_ of us have such considerate parents," he drawled, smirking across the hall at the Gryffindor table where the first years were just sitting down.

Eugene spotted one of the Weasley's many children – red haired, befreckled, and towering over everyone else – alongside Potter and a boy Eugene was sure was called Finnigan, followed closely by three girls, one of which was the blonde Male girl he had watched bury herself amongst the other students after being sorted.

Rolling his eyes at Draco, Eugene looked down at his timetable to see what lessons he would be having first, and so which books he would need to fetch after breakfast. Transfiguration first, which he was most anxious to start with; Potions did not look to be all that fun as a subject, while Charms and Defence Against The Dark Arts looked to be far more interesting. He wondered idly when flying lessons would start, and wished in vain that first years were allowed at least their own brooms at school; Quidditch for second years and above was fair enough, but no first year brooms _at all_? Half of Eugene's childhood – every Christmas and Easter with his mother's family in Canada – had been spent on a broomstick. He could not wait until the holidays when he could get back on his broom and fly over the beautiful landscapes of Alaska and British Columbia.

Once breakfast had bee eaten, the first year Slytherins rose as one and left the hall, dithering while they tried to remember their way back to their common room. A few Gryffindors' did the same, although a prefect came to their rescue and led them up the marble stairs just as one of the Slytherin boys got their bearings.

"This way!" he said, apparently remembering where to go, and the rest ambled after him.

Eugene was day dreaming about playing Quidditch as a first year – being the youngest ever player in Hogwarts for the last four or five generations – when the blonde Male girl ran out of the hall and looked around wildly, searching for something. She caught sight of the group headed towards a staircase that led down towards the dungeons, and walked quickly over to them. Sadly, the person she reached first was Draco Malfoy, who had his back turned to her so that she did not see the silver and green on his robes.

"Excuse me?" she piped up in a timid voice that reminded Eugene of running water. It was lucid, and her words seemed to flow together in a clear voice despite her apparent apprehension. "I can't remember the way to the common room,"

Draco spun round and fixed her with a disparaging look. "I should hope not. _You _don't belong in _our_ world."

She just stared at him dumbly, unable to come up with a response.

"Just look at you!" he tugged hard on the sleeve of her new robes, and the fabric ripped beneath his fingers. "I bet you don't even know what Quidditch is! Clearly, you are not from a wizarding family, or you'd know what fabric's your robes are meant to be made of,"

Eugene was about to pluck up the courage to step in in her defence, but the girl, staring at the tear in her new robes took one look at the mean smile on Draco's face, and turned tail to run for one of the adjoining corridors without a backwards glance.

"See?" he drawled as the group moved on towards the dungeons, a couple of the others laughing. "What did I tell you? Honestly, they shouldn't let these types in…"

Eugene did not follow them. Instead, he checked the Great Hall and saw there were still plenty of older students from his house that were still eating, so getting back to the common room would not be an issue. He followed the girl into the corridor she had run down, intent on finding her to make sure she was all right. Part of him wanted her to know that not _all_ Slytherin's were bad, just Draco Malfoy. And another part wanted to make sure she was not upset.

Making a quick turn down a side passage, he almost missed her because she had lodged herself behind a statue and curled into a small ball, sniffing to herself. Eugene stuck his head into the limited space, looking down on the crown of her head, and gently cleared his throat; she flinched at the unexpected sound, but did not make a move to get up.

"Excuse me?"

Nothing.

"Are you all right?"

"Yeah…" she croaked finally, slowly uncurling so she could sit up straight, wiping her eyes on her ripped sleeve. "I'm okay…"

"Here," Eugene held out a hand to her, and she hesitantly took it, letting him pulled her to her feet. He then pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to her. This earned him a brief smile before she dabbed her eyes and adjusted her robes. "Better?"

"A lil'bit…" she admitted. "But not really…"

Eugene frowned. "That was a horrible thing for Draco to do."

"Oh, was that his name? I don't know who he is. I don't know anyone. I don't know _anything_." She sniffed again, and dabbed at her eyes with his handkerchief. "I didn't see he was from a different house till he turned round. I saw the other Gryffindor's leaving so I rushed to eat, and when I got outside I thought that was them and they were waiting for me. I don't remember how to get back…" she was slowly starting to panic, and Eugene – flustered and not knowing how to help – put a hand on her shoulder.

"Look, we will just go back to the Great Hall and find another Gryffindor to show you the way, all right? It's only the first day, I'm sure students get lost all the time," he tried to cheer her up, but her smile did not quite reach her eyes.

"Thanks," she said to his left boot, wiping away a fresh tear. "You're really kind."

"Don't mention it," he gave her a smile, which widened when she reciprocated. "My name is Eugene, what's yours?"

"Katherine," she said. "But everyone calls me Katy."

Eugene held out his hand to her again, and once again she took it. Her grip was surprisingly firm considering how distraught she had been, and as he looked up from their clasped hands he found he was caught in her gaze; her eyes were like sapphires, two scraps of sky that had been placed into them, even if they were clouded over at the moment.

"A pleasure to meet you, my lady," he said with another smile, and this time she laughed.

"I'm not a lady…I mean, I'm just…Katy. That's all…"

Eugene opened his mouth to speak, but was interrupted by a shrill voice calling, "Katy? Katy!" down the corridor.

They both turned to see another girl – a Gryffindor student with bushy brown hair and prominent front teeth racing towards them.

"Hey Hermione," Katy said, trying to hide the handkerchief in her hands.

"Katy! Where have you been? We were getting worried about you, we thought you were right behind us," she spoke a hundred miles an hour. "I went back to look for you, we even sent Percy to look for you in case you took a wrong turning, and here you are! What on earth happened?"

"Well," Katy bit her lip, and tried to hide her torn sleeve behind her back.

"How did you do that?" the Hermione girl asked, before grabbing the arm without waiting for a response. She said something, tapping the fabric with her wand, and the material stitched itself back into its original form. "There we go, _much_ better now. Anyway, you had better tell me what happened on the way back to the tower, we're supposed to be in lessons in ten minutes, and we still need to find the classroom!"

Katy smiled at her in a resigned sort of way, and her gaze slid to Eugene again. She smiled, and started to say something but Hermione cut her off.

"Thank you for all your help, but I'll take it from here. You'd better be going too, we don't want to be late for our first lessons this morning, do we?" She took Katy firmly by the arm and steered her towards the entrance hall.

Katy looked over her shoulder as she was marched away towards the stairs and the upper castle. "Goodbye!" she called. "And thanks again!"

Eugene raised a hand in farewell and waited for a bit before scurrying off to find a Slytherin to take him back to their common room. Once there, he thanked the fifth year who had led him and went to his dormitory; Draco was still lecturing the two thug like boys who seemed to have been flanking him since last night about the declining standards at the school, and Eugene ignored him grandly while he fished around in his trunk for his school books for the day.

Sadly, he still had to follow them as they went off to their first lesson that morning, and he made sure to sit as far away from them as he could. Luckily, they were having the lesson with the Hufflepuffs, so he managed to manoeuvre himself into the room last so that he had to sit with one of them. The dark haired boy gave him a suspicious look as he set himself down beside him, and looked very surprised when he offered his hand.

"Hello, I'm Eugene. What's your name?"

"Justin," he looked completely stunned that a Slytherin was bothering to be polite.

Cautiously, Justin shook his hand, and they began talking about what they had done over the summer. He was a Muggle born, which took a bit of gentle prodding to get out of him, but once he had admitted it, Eugene started asking questions which he hoped did not sound too rude or aggressive. Truth be told, he found Muggles fascinating, and he was sincerely interested in what Justin had to say. In return, he told the boy about the Wizarding World, and he seemed just as keen as Eugene to get to know him. They were cut short by the arrival of a stern faced woman who Eugene recognised as the witch who had over seen their sorting.

McGonagall introduced them all to the world of Transfiguration with the abrupt words of, "This magic is very complex, and very dangerous. If I find any of you messing around while in my lesson you will leave and _not_ come back. You have been warned,"

Far from letting them loose on the world and turn things like her desk into a pig, they started with a boring matchstick that no one by the end of the lesson had turned into a needle.

"I feel a bit better," Justin admitted to Eugene as they packed up their things. "I thought I would be bottom of the class…"

"None of us can really do magic at first," Eugene said as they left the room. "Anyway, we're not allowed to outside school. We all start in the same place," he gave the boy a smile. "Being pureblood doesn't really give us a head start at all, though some would have you believe so…" he looked pointedly at Draco, who sneered back and swept away with his two overly large shadows into the tide of students thronging the corridors.

"Thanks again," Justin grinned at him, and looked back towards the stairs at the other end of the corridor. "Well, I've got Herbology now. I need to work out where the green houses are,"

A seventh year Ravenclaw boy walked past and in a bored voice said, "Straight out the main doors, hand left and walk round the castle till you get the back and you'll see them." It sounded as though he had been repeating directions for first years all morning.

"Thanks!" Justin called after the boy. "See ya, Eugene," he waved and disappeared into the crowd.

Eugene checked his own timetable and murmured "Charms…"

"Just down the next corridor!" He looked up and saw the jolly fat friar from last night tottering down the hallway with a contented smile. "Better hurry though, you'll be late at this rate!"

Eugene was about to thank him, but he sneezed, and by the time he had finished scrabbling round for his handkerchief, the ghost had gone. Oh, of course! He had given it to Katy. He would have to find her at some point – his father would be very angry if he found out that Eugene had given away his great-great-grandfather's handkerchief.

XOXOX

The week had literally flown by, and Katy's head was still buzzing with all that had happened. She hadn't seen the Slytherin boy who had been so kind to her on the first day, even though she had made a couple of trips to their table in the mornings to give back his handkerchief. The hostile looks from the majority of students had sent her scurrying back to the Gryffindor table in a terrible freight. She could only keep it on her at all times and hope they ran into each other.

When she bumped into Hermione Friday morning in the common room, she discovered that today's Potions lesson was with the Slytherin's, so she could give it back to him.

"This is going to be fascinating!" Hermione gushed as they went down to the Great Hall. "Have you read the set books yet?"

"I read the introduction," Katy grimaced. She had taken one look at the index and decided that she didn't like the subject one bit. Then she found out who taught it, and decided she would feign illness every Friday.

Hermione ploughed on about the subject, and Katy listened politely. She really quite liked the girl, but she felt rather stupid sitting next to her in classes when she knew all the answers already. Hermione was, after all, a pure Muggle – Katy was half and half, like Seamus, only she had just entered into this world, and she felt lost and completely clueless.

After breakfast, Hermione led the way down to the dungeon classroom, and found a seat towards the front. Katy would have liked a seat at the back, as she had in most of her other lessons, but there were jars along the walls with pickled animals hanging suspended in sickly looking liquids, so she dived for the seat beside Hermione and let her talk her into staying for the lesson.

"It's horrible!" she whispered as the rest of the class slowly trickled in. "It like animal abuse – only they're already dead!"

"I'm sure there's a good reason for it," Hermione reassured her. "They wouldn't let a teacher do that sort of thing, other wise."

"I don't like it, all the same," Katy shivered.

Professor Snape, when everyone had arrived, took a register – and it could have just been Katy's imagination, but she could have sworn that he sneered over the Gryffindor names.

"Katherine Male,"

"S-sir," she stammered, terrified of this dimly lit room with its pickled animals, and of the teacher standing behind the desk with his long robes and cold expression.

"Draco Malfoy,"

"Present, Sir," the voice slid down her spine like cold water and made Katy feel even worse.

Chancing a glance behind her, she saw with relief that the boy's attention wasn't turned to her. Instead, it was turned to that Potter boy sitting on Hermione's other side – the one everyone talked about and who Katy was in awe of, after everything her father had told her when she'd written to him and asked. She wasn't brave enough to ask him herself, and she didn't want to get someone else to do it for her – Dad had been more than happy to oblige. She understood the significance surrounding Potter, but she couldn't help but think to herself that he didn't seem to fit the mould of what everyone said about him.

Potter should have been able to breath fire and fly without a broom, ace Defence Against The Dark Arts and be able to turn metal into gold – not quite the skinny boy sat two seats along, fiddling with his quill and nervously patting his hair down over his forehead, just as jumpy and nervous as she was.

"Ah, yes. Harry Potter. Our new – _celebrity_." Snape said in a soft, menacing voice.

After they're little introduction to Potions, Snape subjected Harry to humiliation – namely highlighting how little he knew about Potions. Katy wasn't surprised, and almost smiled when Hermione put her hand up, going as far as actually standing up when Snape kept ignoring her.

"What is the difference, Potter, between monkshood and wolfsbane?"

In a quiet, contained voice, Harry said, "I don't know. I think Hermione does, though, why don't you try her?"

Katy gave a nervous little laugh that she quickly stifled when Snape turned to glower at her, before turning to Hermione and snapping. "Sit down,"

Then he gave them the complete list of correct answers to the questions he had demanded from Harry, and snapped again when no one made a move to copy it all down. Katy couldn't remember for the life of her everything he said, and felt guilty making Hermione retell her all over again, but she didn't seem to mind.

Still, their house lost a point for Harry's 'cheek', and Katy felt that, if it were any other teacher, she would have stood up and told them just how unfair and uncalled for that was, but this was Snape – her nerve failed her.

"Now, today we will be mixing a simple potion to cure boils," his gaze swept across the room and rested on their table. "This shouldn't be too difficult for you."

Harry turned to work with Percy's brother, who she was sure was called Ron, and Hermione turned with a sympathetic look to Katy. "Want me to work with you?"

"Please!" she said desperately. "I'm going to blow something up without you, I just know it!"

They stewed horned slugs, crushed snake fangs and Katy weighed out the nettle leaves – grateful that they were dried and no longer stung. Hermione paid close attention as Snape doted on that brat Malfoy, while Katy kept crushing her fangs. It seemed that she alone out of the people on their bench actually knew how to use a pestle and mortar, and she even went as far as showing Ron and Harry the best way to do it; Ron gave her a disgruntled look, eyes flickering to Hermione briefly before looking back down at his mortar. Harry smiled and said thank you before following her advice, and grinning when the fangs became a fine powder very quickly.

"Thanks!"

"Welcome," Katy grinned back.

"Now see here everyone, How Draco has prepared the cauldron for stewing the slugs-"

Ron muttered to Harry, "Who gives a-?"

Something hissed loudly and the nearest people screamed; green smoke filled the room and a horrible substance seeped from the bottom of a cauldron. Hermione yelped and they all jumped up onto their stools to get away from it; Ron swore as the toe of his shoe was eaten away by the foul liquid, and Katy gasped when she saw the unfortunate boy who had got the full blast of the accident. He was _covered_ in angry red boils, and more and more kept spreading all the time.

"Idiot boy!" the teacher cried, waving his wand and making the fail potion disappear, and going on to berate him for his mistake. "Take him to the hospital wing," he snapped at the boy whose cauldron had been destroyed, before rounding on Harry and accusing him of letting the boy fail on purpose to make himself look better, and finished by deducting another point from Gryffindor.

Harry's mouth opened to object, but Katy saw Ron kick him behind the table and murmur something. Katy was about to start on Snape when he rounded on her too, and her courage failed her.

"Is there a problem, Miss Male?"

"No Sir," she said quickly, thinking privately that the man was a bitter, not exactly twisted, but long suffering man. The thought was gone as soon as it had appeared, as he turned away from her to deal with the melted cauldron, and Katy spent the rest of the lesson trying to figure out why she had had those thoughts.

She didn't know _anything_ about him, other than that he was an ex-pupil, taught Potions, and was head of Slytherin. So how had she known he wasn't _twisted_, just bitter? It was all so confusing that at the end of the lesson it took longer for her to put everything away, and she nearly walked into someone as she rushed to follow Hermione through the door.

"Hello again," the dark haired boy in green and black said warmly.

"Oh, hello!" she said brightly, suddenly feeling much better. "I've been looking for you all week!" she reached into her pocket, and found the handkerchief wasn't in there. "Oh no, where is it?" she panicked as she couldn't find it in any of her pockets, or in her satchel. "I had this morning in here!"

They retraced her steps to the table she had been working at, and Katy found it underneath Hermione's stool, covered in boil inducing sludge and completely filthy.

"Oh, it must have fallen out of my pocket before the cauldron melted! I'm so sorry…"

"Don't worry about it," he said, using his dragon hide gloves to pick it up. "I can clean it,"

"But I can't give it back to you like this!" she protested. That was just _rude_.

"Katy?" Hermione walked back into the classroom and saw them there. "Is something wrong?"

"You wouldn't happen to know a spell that cleans things, would you?" Katy asked in vain hope.

"Actually, I do," Hermione drew her wand and pointed at the manky handkerchief. "Scourgify!"

And to their surprise the handkerchief lay in the palm of his hand, clean as a whistle.

"Wow!" Katy said, thoroughly impressed. "Thanks, Hermione!"

"There, that's better isn't it?" she smiled. "Come on!" she grabbed Katy's arm. "We're going to be late!"

"Just a sec!" Katy said over her shoulder, and turned her attention back to the Slytherin boy. "I'm sorry about that," she nodded at the handkerchief, now in his ungloved hand. "I would have given it back sooner, but I couldn't find you."

"I'm normally at the Slytherin table during breakfast," he said with a wry smile.

"Err," Katy bit her lip. She didn't want to tell him that his housemates scared her.

"I guess we are a bit intimidating," he admitted, noticing her hesitation.

"Yeah, lil'bit…I mean, the older students are, anyway."

There was a momentary silence while he tucked the handkerchief into his sleeve, and Katy hefted her satchel back onto her shoulder.

"Right then," he said.

"Okay…"

They stood there staring at each other. Katy had to admit she was staring, his eyes were very intriguing; they looked almost black unless you saw them in a certain light, and then they were streaked with warm, almost golden browns – rings like the cross section of a tree trunk. She remembered – back when her mother's partner, Kegan, had been trying to get to know her; he had taken her to the Natural History Museum in London, and on the top floor of the entrance hall, on the wall above the main doors, was a huge cross section of a tree that took up most of that wall, and was said to date back to before 0BC. The boy's irises reminded her of the many veined rings that ran through that mammoth halo of wood.

"Sorry," Katy said, blinking and looking away briefly before staring at his boot. "I don't remember your name…"

"It's Eugene," he told her with a smile. "And you're Katy,"

"Yeah," she gave him a weak smile. "I'm good with faces, but hopeless with names."

"Come _on_!" Hermione called from the doorway.

"I'd better go, or we'll both be late,"

"I expect I will see you around the school." Said Eugene.

"Yeah, see you!" she waved as she left the classroom.

By the afternoon, Katy was buzzing with news for her father, and wanted to send a letter to her mother and Kegan too, and since they had the rest of the day off, she convinced Hermione to come with her to the library so she could write the letters and then find the owlery.

Hermione had been all too happy to oblige, and she sat at the table surrounded by a mountain of books and papers. Katy sat with her own pile of parchment and wondered how best to phrase her letters. Taking out the bottle of electric blue ink she had been given before leaving, Katy set about her letter to her Muggle family first and foremost.

_Dear Mum, Kegan, Sally and Myles,_

_I miss you all loads, but I'm having a lot of fun here! I have learnt loads already, and I'm really keen on learning more. I can't decide what I like more, Herbology or Charms class. Charms is a certain type of magic that's different from things like Transfiguration, I would tell you how it's different but I don't really understand it myself! Herbology's great – we get to work with magical plants and the lessons are in a green house like Grandma's, only it's probably five times bigger and some of the things in there can eat you! (Not in Green House 1, at least. We have to wait a few years before we can go see the man eating plants)_

_The food is excellent, it's nearly as good as yours Mum! But I don't think they do barbecue's here, so I hope Kegan feels up to having one every day during the holidays when I come home!_

_Tell Sally and Myles I miss them loads and I promise I will bring them something back when I come home for Christmas. Apparently there's a wizarding village near here, but only third years and above can go, but the prefect who showed us the way to our dorms said he would go and get some things for me when he gets the chance._

_The people here are really nice, and I already have a good friend in my dormitory – she's called Hermione and she's from a Muggle family too, and they live quite close to us. Can we have her over to stay during the holidays?_

_Love you loads, and can't wait to see you again at Christmas,_

_Katy x x x _

_PS I hope owl mail doesn't startle the neighbours too much!_

Once that had been sealed in an envelope and she had written the address on the front neatly, Katy sat for a bit and thought very hard about what she should say to her father before she set out the next sheet of parchment and began.

_Dear Dad,_

_I survived the first week, like you said I would, and I'm really enjoying Hogwarts! The sorting was a bit scary, and I ended up in Gryffindor instead of Ravenclaw like you. Still, I really like my house and the people in it – I'm settling in with the other girls in my dormitory. I've made friends with this girl called Hermione, she's from a Muggle family, and I think she knows more about magic than most of the other wizards in our year put together! I got really scared when she said she had read all the course book already, I thought I was going to fail before I had even started!_

_I really like Charms, I can't wait to make objects fly like those stones you made skim over the lake this summer. Herbology's loads of fun too! I love the greenhouses, I wish we had more lessons outside the classrooms, its loads more fun to learn by actually doing something with our hands other than making notes. McGonagall is scary, and I get really confused with all the notes she makes us write – I don't understand half of it, and I keep having to ask Hermione to explain it to me all over again when we do our homework._

_We just had our first Potions lesson this morning – McGonagall is reasonable, even if she is a bit scary. Professor Snape is _really_ scary! He took two points from Gryffindor because this boy called Harry didn't know the answers to the questions he asked (before we had even started the lesson!) and he ignored Hermione even though he could see she knew the answers, and then someone accidentally melted their cauldron when we were making a draft to cure boils, and he blamed Harry for purposefully making him get it wrong, even though Harry didn't say anything to them the whole lesson. It was really unfair!_

_Then something weird happened – I was about to say something to Snape when he turned round and asked if something was wrong, and I said 'No Sir,' because I didn't want him to have a go at me either, and when I looked into his eyes I felt something really odd. You know the saying 'bitter and twisted'? Well, he _seemed_ bitter about something (I don't know what) but I didn't think he was twisted. It was like I knew he was suffering from something that happened ages ago – but I don't know anything about him beyond his name, and that he used to be a student here. I don't know what to make of this – is it a normal wizard thing to be able to know stuff like this without trying?_

_Also, I see what you meant about the Slytherins – one boy called Malfoy (don't know his first name) ripped the sleeves of my robes and said I wasn't a proper witch and that I don't belong in this world, and that my robes weren't made of the right material or something. I only approached him because I thought he was a Gryffindor, but then he turned round and I saw he was wearing green. This other boy came after me when I left and gave me hid handkerchief – he was really nice to me, and Hermione came to find me so I got back to the tower all right. Eugene's also in Slytherin, but he'd so different from the Malfoy git – I quite like him actually, I hope I see more of him during term than Malfoy._

_Anyway, I don't want to think about it too much, there's loads more here that's made me really happy! Going back to what you said to me before I left, I still don't know what I want. I know that I don't want a toad – there's a boy called Neville with one and he gets laughed at a lot. He's really quite nice but I don't think toads make great pets. I can't decide between a cat, rat or owl. I guess an owl would be best because then I can talk to you more easily instead of having to grab a school owl all the time, but I miss Madison at home, and having something to cuddle up with at night or in the common room would be nice too. There's a boy with a rat, and I quite like the look of them but he insists that they are terrible pets and boring as hell. I think I need to think of this a bit longer, so maybe not this Christmas. Could I be cheeky and ask you if I can have a pet as a 'well done for passing your first year' present? I might have made my mind up by then!_

_I will write again when something interesting happens, which should not take too long because everything is interesting around here! Do the stairs really move around? These third year twins said they do, and I swear the suits of armour walk – they are always facing different directions every time I walk past them on the way to breakfast, and again at the end of the day._

_I miss you already, and I would love it if I could see you again over Christmas. By then there will have been a Quidditch match, and I'll be able to tell you all about it! I loved that one you took me to over the summer, and I can't wait to see another one. That's another thing – next year we are allowed to have our own brooms, and I wouldn't mind having one myself, even though I don't think I want to try out for the team. Those bludgers have put me off it really, I think it's safer in the stands. Mum would kill me if she knew I was doing something dangerous like that._

_I had better go get some homework done, we have Friday afternoons off and I want to have as much free time over the weekend as possible! I hope I will talk to you again soon._

_Lots of love,_

_Katy x x x x x x x x x x x x_

"Hermione?" Katy said as she carefully tucked the letter into an envelope.

"Yes, Katy?" she said, laying a thick volume aside.

"Can we go up to the owlery now? I've written my letters,"

They chatted on the way up – about how different this was to normal secondary school, and wondering what their old friends were doing now. Katy smiled as they picked out a screech owl from the school supply and gave it the two letters; they watched the owl fly away over the lake, and disappear into the distant horizon. She really liked Hermione; true, she was a bit bossy and really brainy, but she was really nice as well, and Katy felt comfortable in her presence. Also, as they settled back down in the library (since a group of older students had taken over the common room and were being very loud) Katy found she was a valuable asset in the realm of homework; she was bombarding poor Hermione with a million questions about Transfiguration, and they spent half an hour puzzling over the Defence Against the Dark Arts essay title until even Hermione gave up and asked the librarian, a woman called Madam Pince, for the right book.

"Yikes," Katy stared at the fifteen pages devoted to the topic at hand, and wished she had an excuse to run away from the library so she didn't have to deal with this.

"Oh, _now_ I understand!" Hermione trilled, and began copying note furiously onto some spare parchment. "Don't you see? It all makes perfect sense now!"

"It's a bunch of squiggly lines." Katy lamented. "I don't get it at all!"

Once Hermione talked her slowly through the first three pages, it suddenly clicked, and they spent the next two hours writing up their essays.

All in all, Katy thought when they had finished and headed off to dinner, it had been a good day's work, and an even better first week. She could do this – become a witch and work with something magical like her Dad, and she promised herself to make him proud, no matter what.


End file.
